Lewis Hamilton's X44 ruled at Saturday's Artic X-Prix

The first day of Extreme E racing at the Artic X-Prix in Greenland was marked by a high number of retirements from participating teams. With one departure from the first qualifying round and three during the second one, the track showed that there is still room for improvements on the Odyssey 21, the competition’s official vehicle.

The X44 drivers, crew of the Formula 1 multichampion Lewis Hamilton, headed the day with a great performance of Cristina Gutierrez, who recovered in record time to be present, as well as the always competitive Sebastien Loeb.

Initial Qualifying

The initial X44 attempt on the 8.6-kilometer Kangerlussuaq circuit began with Gutierrez. Starting as the eighth of the nine teams to take place in Qualifying 1 at Russell Glacier, the Spaniard headed into the driver change area with a deficit of just 3.41 seconds before handing over to Loeb.

The eight-time world rally champion set the fastest individual lap of the session, posting a time of 5:46.155 and combining with Gutierrez’s attempt to reach a lead of 3.712 seconds.

Your TOP QUALIFIERS for the Arctic X Prix are @SebastienLoeb and @cris_tortu of @TeamX44!
What a drive! ????#ExtremeE #ArcticXPrix pic.twitter.com/xno7i4LQc6
— Extreme E (@ExtremeELive) August 28, 2021

The strong performance by the Hamilton boys left Abt CUPRA, featuring Mattias Ekstrom and 2001 Dakar Rally winner Jutta Kleinschmidt, in second place ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing.

One of the unfortunate notes of Qualifying 1 was Jenson Button’s JBXE, which was unable to complete even one lap due to car failure.

Q1 table

X44 (Gutiérrez / Loeb) 13:45.235

ABT Cupra (Kleinschmidt / Ekstrom) +3.712

Ganassi (Price / LeDuc) +6.396

Veloce (Gilmour / Sarrazin) +34.201

Xite Energy (Giampaoli Zonca / Bennett) +51.742

Acciona Sainz (Sanz / Sainz) +55.645

Andretti United (Munnings / T. Hansen) +1:29.950

Rosberg X Racing (Taylor / Kristoffersson) +1:44.403

JBXE (Ahlin-Kottulinsky / K. Hansen) +1 lap

Second Qualifying

Stage two brought out the Extreme E leaders with a bang. Both Molly Taylor and Johan Kristoffersson of Rosberg X Racing posted solid laps to beat X44 by 10.9 seconds. This result allowed the championship leading team to regain what they lost in the first session, and aspire to the second Semifinal, which looked difficult after the rollover at the first round in the morning.

The X44 had a very positive second round again, and with an outstanding but conservative lap by Loeb and Gutierrez, they secured the first place in the standings with a new reference for the second session, about 4 seconds faster than JBXE. Andretti United was seconds away from taking the top spot as Timmy Hansen made an incredible comeback, but it was only enough to put him ahead of JBXE by a couple of tenths.